When will lowercase Odell come back?

Americans: “oh, joy! Monday is a holiday! Finally, a three-day weekend! I’ll probably still answer emails on Monday though just to be safe.”

Literally all of Europe: “we have 12 holidays this week and after that I’ll be on vacation for two months. If you contact me about work I will report you to the authorities.”

Anyone in the world can post anything they want and if anyone else anywhere else in the world feels like it they can instantly send that person little fractions of a bitcoin. But sure, nostr has no use case. Critics ngmi 🤣🤦‍♂️

What sparks your joy?

Welcome to the g-EU-lag

The complicated aspect about the Social Security system in the United States is that it was falsely marketed.

It's called an "entitlement" because people pay into it and are supposed to get it back like a pension, regardless of whether they are rich or poor when they retire. And so the Baby Boomer generation views any cuts to their social security as a rugpull, basically. It's not insurance or charity; it's an entitlement.

However, although it was marketed as like an entitlement/pension, that's not how the math worked out in practice. And it's because population growth is slowing. It was based on ponzi math, assuming that every generation will be bigger than the one that came before it. But the Baby Boomer generation was huge.

In addition, when Social Security was created, the retirement age was set near the average life expectancy. Many people would not live long enough to collect it, and most would collect it for a handful of years. Only a small minority of outliers would work for like 40 years and then live off social security for like 20+ years. But then over the decades, life expectancy increased by like 15 years, so the default assumption is indeed that someone can work for 40 years and then have 20+ years of retirement, even though the amount they pay into it doesn't really mathematically cover that. It's not designed for that en masse.

And so Baby Boomers had like a 3.5 worker-to-retiree ratio to support in their peak earnings years, while Millennials will have more like a 2.5 worker-to-retiree ratio or less to deal with. Which means they get a worse deal. Many Millennials don't even think they'll get it at all, despite paying into it.

That breaks up the social contract and sets up inter-generational political conflict. "Fourth Turning" stuff.

It's a big reason why "defined benefit" plans are inherently unstable; they rely on being able to predict the future.

And it's also a big reason why, when speaking about deficits, nothing stops this train.

If for some reason you were to find yourself in a knife fight, would you rather have a tanto knife or a bowie knife?

Any knife connoisseurs here?

Serious question though.

Tether is not a CBDC.

It's literally a BDC

Tether is not a central bank, they don't issue notes of an independent monetary unit. They aren't associated with any govt. Tether is just a modern banknote with most of the same problems, risks, and trust issues. The difference being it is available to anyone with a smart phone without an account -- which is actually a significant improvement over the old garbage.

Tether is custodian issued digital banknotes. Literally in every use of those terms this is the accurate thing to call it. "Cash" has always just referred to banknotes issued that were redeemable in gold or at a bank that was a bearer asset. The difference with a stablecoin like Tether and physical cash is the oversight/surveillance that the institution has for the digital alternative. This is why ecash is actually the only thing that digitally shares basically all the characteristics of physical cash (txn privacy from issuer and bearer asset). Tether is far easier to freeze accounts and spy on what everyone is doing. Obviously why people want to label it "something bad."

My point is that the CBDC label is NOT accurate, and when we use words and labels arbitrarily, it desensitizes people to them. If people just become "whatever" about Tether (because if you don't use it, who cares), and everyone calls it a CBDC, then after a few years of this people are just going to think "CBDCs are fine, who cares?"

Calling everything we don't like a CBDC is a HUGE BENEFIT to actual CBDCs.

Bank digital currencies are not a problem. They will remain solvent as long as the "bank" does. They are a much better option than credit cards, and the option of being able to issue ecash is even better.

BDCs are certainly a far cry from the #Bitcoin sovereign world that we are building and have nothing to do with it, but they are ALSO a far cry from a genuine CBDC.

So please, stop using words that matter in a stupid and cheap way, because when we REALLY need them, you'll have sucked them of all of their power and meaning.

What are some of the best movies of the past five years?

the EU is a giant bureaucracy that doesn't care about it's people

Fact | Washington Post proves how stupid it is.

If votes don't matter then why do politicians go out of their way to manipulate election results? Genuine question